What to do when you start hearing from scholarship organizations.

Can you believe that your senior year is almost coming to a close?  All your stress and hard work will be worth it when you walk down the aisle on June 15th and receive your diploma.

But don’t slow down yet.  There is still work to be done. 

Your college is picked – CHECK.

Your scholarship applications mailed – CHECK

Now I sit back and take it easy……….No….. not yet.

You’ve probably by now received your award letters from your college.  Make sure to review them – if you are not sure what something means call them and ask.  You don’t want to end up agreeing to the terms and then find out you agreed to mostly loans.

My last two newsletters dealt with just that.  In Issue 8 of the MHS Counseling & Career Scholarship Newsletter, I included news bulletins from FASTWEB.com:  Quick Reference Guide to Evaluating Financial Aid Award Letters, and Issue 9 had news bulletins from Federal Student Aid on:  Student Aid and Identity Theft and Fact Sheets on Grant Programs, Loan Programs and What kids of federal Student loans are available. 

You will also start hearing from the scholarships you applied to.  Don’t just put their letters aside.  Read them through and then again.  Follow the instructions carefully and on time.  You don’t want all your hard work to go to waste because you didn’t forward the information needed to the scholarship committee on time – and thus invalidating your award.

Open all your mail – even if you see a return address from a scholarship you don’t remember applying to and think it might be junk.  WHY, well if you applied to the Isaac Emerson Palmer Scholarship you might be surprised that the envelope will read Scholarship America.  HUH, well Scholarship America administers the account for not only the Palmer scholarship but many others. 

A very important word of advice…..

Find out from your college where payments of outside sources should be sent.  Should payments be sent to the Financial Aid office or the Bursars office – this is very important – and also ask for the proper address for the office. 

WHY, this is more work?  Yes, but a little work on this end helps out when you are not in search of why payments were not posted to your college account. 

Let me explain.  If you provide the scholarship committee just with the college’s main address – that is where the check will go – then the college has to sort out where it should have gone – taking time.  In the past I have fielded many an email or phone call in search of where the scholarship money went – and sadly some colleges have chased the checks and not posted it to the proper accounts.  So you don’t want to be on this point and playing ‘ring around the rosy’ on the phone.

So, make sure now that you provide have the proper mailing address for your college to the scholarship committee.

Make copies of the award letters – highlight your name – the scholarship name – and the amount of the award – put your college student id number next to your name. (This helps in posting to the proper account.)

Then when you have all your award letters – type up a cover letter to the college and send it to the financial aid office – RE:  Private scholarship awards to be posted to my account.  With this information the college puts a "pending" note on your account that these awards are coming. 

Always keep a copy – so that if you do not see the amount posted to the account you can either contact the scholarship committee to see when it was mailed out to the school or then check with the school to see why it hasn't posted.

I've had to do this a couple of times.  But the trouble is worth it when you don't have to either take loans or pay it out of pocket.

Good luck to the Class of 2012.  Congratulations and best wishes to your future endeavors.

And don’t forget – to reapply for the Isaac Palmer, Community Foundation of SE CT and the William H. Chapman Foundation scholarships – they are available for College students and renewable for up to 4 years!!!!!